DOWN @ "COVE" - 5/march/2012

THAT'S ALL FOLKS !

ANDIAMO !

COME BACK SOON NOW, DYA'HEAR?



GARY SNYDER ON THE JURASSIC & P.S....

This aint the Pacific Rim.This aint Haight.Kyoto, this is not. & none know of Gary Snyder on this Jurassic coast. Caught bus to Portland w/ GS in the bag, and for a walk, starting at the easternmost end of this 50 million year-old coast. but i sit instead, out of the chill-wind @ The Cove House Inn, w/ a half-pint of Broadside (Adnam's Brewery), and crisps, before the fire.



Altho sunny& bright and i'm "merry & bright"(Henry Miller), i feel i would be much reduced by the chill breeze in my skimpy, summer-wear. No walking along the West Weares path or the 9 miles, on pebbles, to Abbotsbury. This is THE JURASSIC, and planning to come here, i quickly grabbed the nearest Snyder books to accompany me = AXE HANDLES and Timothy Gray's book, "Gary Snyder and The Pacific Rim". Jurassic and Pacific Rim seemed romantic juxtaposition.
i ponder another half & feel the sun thru window - warming but not burning, my neck - it is only 5th March. The wood-burner, not the beer, accounts for my rosied cheeks. Time to split. Plenty of time, if indoor warmth thru window be trusted to walk on the pebbled beach awhile.



P.S.

i pop across road from Chesil and "Cove" to visit the painter, Liz Wright in her studio/home. Have not seen her in a while. She is happy to drop paint-brush, offers tea and we chat. Lots of new work. We trade/barter my new "The Thomas Hardy Poems" - (quirky, found poems from a Hardy text) and i happily take home a print of one of her new works....Best of all, she shows me a collaborative "film" of her paintings with voiced-over poems by her old amigo, Mike Sarne, of "Come Outside" fame in the 60's. He has yet to actually recite/read the poems himself, for the film. But both poems and paintings work very well...AND i am surprised at the quality of the poetry ! i would never have thought it. Here's me, with Snyder in my bag, very much my bag...but yes, the Wright/Sarne collaboration was excellent, and found on this old Jurassic coast at Chiswell, Portland.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  





BUY THE BOOK #3

THE SOUND OF ONE HAND

(Paintings and Calligraphy by Zen Master Hakuin)

*

SHAMBHALA - Boston & London - 2010

*

£60.00p incl. p & p in UK & EU.

*

BUY THE BROADSIDE

FRANCO BELTRAMETTI

2 letters to Nado

*

Stingy Artist Editions - Dorset - 2010

limited edition of 100 copies

£7.50p incl.p&p in UK & EU

*  *  *



BUY THE BOOK #2

BY HEART

Bob Arnold

Origin Press - Kyoto/Vermont - 1991

*

£12.00p incl.p&p in UK & EU

*  *  *  *  *  *  *



APPROACHING BRIDPORT

BLUE THRU BACK O' BUS WINDOWS
BRIDPORT BECKONS BEYOND -
I GO - NOT TO BROWSE
THE BARROW-BOYS' WARES
NOR DRINK A BEER
ON MARKET-DAY
NOR WITH BAITED-BREATH
FOR BOOK-BIZ
OR BARTER OR BANTER
IN THIS SMALL TOWN
WHERE BOOZE IS ON THE BREATH
RATHER THAN POETRY.
POETRY IS NOWHERE-BEING-BORN
BUT BUSY DYING -
A FOOTNOTE IN SOME
BACK-O'-BEYOND
OF A FOREIGN FIELD -
BEYOND AND BEYOND
IN AN UNTENDED CORNER.
BUKOWSKI SOME CURRENCY MAYBE -
BUT BASIL BUNTING OR BELTRAMETTI?...
DOES BLOODAXE BRING HOME THE BACON
IN THE TOWN OF ROPEMAKERS' BOOKSHOPS?
BEST TO JUST BREEZE-IN
AND BOW-OUT
WITH A BUDDHA-SMILE
AND RETURN TO THE BEAT
IN MY OWN BACK-YARD.
                                                  1o.35 - 14.20 hrs -23/march/2012

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  

RISING IN MY MIND

sitting here, before the fire, while SPELT dough proves. house temp. doesn't warrant heating but the yeasted bread-making does. LANA sings to me from the corner stereo-player : the young diva who has currently ousted ADELE in my attentions. beside me, on sofa, is my shoulder-bag and my swag of birthday books from KRIS (and his COLLECTED WORKS BOOKSHOP) in Melbourne. There's a glow from the red, fleecy throw, draped over backrest, that rivals gas-fire....i pick-up ROBYN ROWLAND'S book = "THIS ROAD" (Picaro Press -March 2007 - Wagtail-63). my eye alights immediately on the very first poem - no further than the title,in fact = "PERVERSE SERENITY".  and it stays my mind/catches my mood.
i live in Dorset.and am amazingly settled and content to be here at the moment. is there serenity in being here? are we defined by where we are? is a serenity that is dominated by environs a type of escape from reality - a perversity? i am very aware, that for many years, i have been sustained by things that are not of Dorset, and are not even of being in this house, until lately. i had links around the world, but precious few, and certainly none meaningful outside of family, locally. i was fortunate to have been sustained, in the main by KRIS, who ploughed a sustained and deep furrow from OZ to the UK & the family in Dorset, since the mid 80's when "we" moved here from Southampton. it was his delight to throw himself into "our " Dorset life / or into one of the many blackberry bushes  that line the little lanes and paths around Radipole & Chafeys (my meditation path) AND the path leading to St.Catherine's at Abbotsbury. He says he does not live in Melbourne but inside his head. for my part, the proposition of being where one lives, is overridden by where one is in one's head.
the BUDDHISTS say = ALL IS MIND. i agree. YUP! ALL MIND. ALL MINED. ALL MINE. DORSET ON MY MIND. DORSET IN MY MIND.....(the risen dough became the well-baked bread...)

....now i can enjoy the feast of all that arises in my mind....

*  *  *  *  *